A Life for a Life: (Parish & Richards #1)

by Tim Ellis

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘What about you, Richards?’

  ‘Can I call you, Jed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’m angry with you anyway, Richards. You should have told me you had an angel masquerading as your mother.’

  Angie Richards came back into the living room with a tall glass of lager and a smile. She passed him the lager and said to her daughter, ‘You’re right, Mary – he’s a smooth-talker, all right. Please sit down, Jed.’

  The corners of his mouth twitched as he sat on the sofa. ‘Should I take my shoes off?’ he asked.

  ‘You can if you want to, but it’s not really necessary.’

  He kept them on just in case his feet smelled. He didn’t want to put anyone off the meal, and he couldn’t remember what the socks he had on looked like.

  Angie sat on the sofa next to him. ‘Thank you for taking Mary under your wing, Jed.’

  ‘I needed some help. Mary was there.’

  ‘She thinks you’re wonderful.’

  He wasn’t used to praise and felt uncomfortable.

  ‘Mum,’ Richards said. ‘Haven’t you got things to do in the kitchen?’

  Angie smiled. ‘Take Jed into the dining room, Mary. The meal will be ready soon.’

  They made him cut the beef joint. He had no idea what he was doing, but he produced passable slices of meat. Everything about the meal was perfect. The talk and the laughter were easy, and Parish realised how much he wanted to be part of a real family. He thought of Carrie, and knew that he had made a big mistake. Their relationship was already doomed. Again, Richards was right – it was lust.

  It hardly surprised Parish that Angie Richards had been out with many men. What did surprise him was that she was still single, that there were no suitors camped outside her door while she wove a tapestry depicting the Trojan War.

  ‘In the end,’ Angie said, ‘none of them measured up. Mary keeps my feet firmly on the ground. If Mary doesn’t like them, they don’t get past the front door.’

  He had an idea what she meant about not measuring up. At the moment he felt he didn’t measure up, and wondered what he was going to do about Carrie.

  As much as he would like to have stayed in the warmth and laughter, he excused himself at twenty to four and drove back to his flat.

  ***

  Carrie was waiting for him outside his door when he arrived at five to four. He could smell her perfume as he walked up the stairs. She looked vulnerable. He thought that maybe he should get her a key cut so that she could let herself in, but then he began thinking of the implications if he did. He’d never done anything like this before and had to give serious thought to each move he was going to make. If he gave her a key, what message would it send? Would she let herself in and start rummaging through his things, organising his life, and trying to turn him into someone else?

  He was embarrassed. What should he say to her? Up to now they had hardly spoken. He knew nothing about her really. Who was Carrie Holden? A Personnel Director’s secretary, a betrayed wife, a mother of two children and a beautiful woman seeking revenge. Was this going to be a shallow relationship consisting simply of sex, or was she more than that? Was he more than that? He’d decided on the way home to give them a chance. Maybe their relationship would blossom into something more than snatched moments and sexual fluids.

  She smiled nervously.

  He held her face in his hands and kissed her on the lips.

  ‘Open the door.’ Her voice was hoarse.

  He complied.

  Even before the door had shut, she was pulling at his clothes. He had no chance to switch the light on before he crumpled to the floor with his trousers round his ankles. The sex was hurried and unsatisfying, and the carpet burns on his knees hurt like hell.

  Afterwards, they made love more slowly in the shower, and he told her that he was too old for carpet burns.

  ‘Since my husband met his floozy,’ she said as she dried his back, ‘he doesn’t make love to me anymore.’

  Was that all he was, a replacement penis? Would her husband squeeze between them each time they made love, like a non-permeable membrane?

  They were sitting at the kitchen table, wrapped in towels, and had a cup of tea. He asked her to tell him about herself.

  ‘There’s nothing to tell really. I left school after doing my ‘A’ Levels. I met Paul and we got married. We were saving for a place of our own, so we decided I shouldn’t go to university. I got a job as a secretary instead. Paul already had his degree. I fell pregnant with Tom after a year, and for the next five years I was a housewife until I got the job I’m doing now. All very boring and predictable.’

  ‘Until I came along. Now you’re screwing with the law.’

  They both laughed, but it was hollow laughter.

  ‘I could have been so much more, Jed.’

  She got dressed in the bedroom, and they both knew that she would not come to his flat again. Under different circumstances they might have shared something special, but there was no future in what they had now. The lust was still there, but now it was mixed with pity. He hoped she would find what she wanted.

  He showed her to the door. She kissed his cheek and whispered, ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye Carrie,’ he said. ‘Drive carefully.’

  The phone rang as he shut the door. He hoped it was a wrong number, a long-lost relative, or an idiot selling double-glazing. He prayed it wasn’t someone from the station informing him that there’d been another murder.

  ‘Jed Parish.’ He thought he sounded tired.

  ‘Hello, Jed. Is it a bad time?’

  His heart skipped a beat. It was Angie Richards.

  ‘Hello, Angie. What’s the matter? Did I forget something?’

  ‘Yes, you forgot to ring and ask me out.’

  The towel unravelled and fell in a heap on the floor. If he was unsure before about not seeing Carrie again, he was now certain. ‘My memory is terrible. Does Mary know you’re ringing me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If we’re going to see each other, Mary mustn’t know. If she finds out it will change the nature of our working relationship and I’ll have to let her go.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t want anything to spoil Mary’s job. Maybe we shouldn’t see each other then?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, Angie. We simply have to make sure she doesn’t find out.’

  ‘She’ll find out, Jed. That’s why she’ll make a good detective.’

  ‘Yes, but not yet. Not until our relationship has had a chance to either sink or swim without her interference.’

  ‘All right, I’ll keep it from her for as long as I can, but she’ll drive me crazy. You don’t have to live with her.’

  ‘No, but I have to work with her. If she knew about us, she’d drive me crazy as well. Anyway, enough about Mary – let’s talk about us.’

  They arranged to meet in the Gooseberry restaurant in Chigwell at eight o’clock the following night. She understood that sometimes his private life came a poor second, but he told her he would ring her if something came up.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Monday, 20th January

  He was stamping his frozen feet outside the station with his hands stuffed in his pockets when Richards turned up in the pool car at eight thirty. The snow on the ground had turned to ice over the weekend, and the snowman Richards had built behind her car looked pleased with the exceptionally large penis someone had kindly given him.

  ‘Good morning, Richards,’ he said, climbing into the warmth of the Mondeo and making sure the hot air was blowing on his frost-bitten feet. ‘Thanks for inviting me to lunch yesterday. I had a great time.’

  She pulled out into the slow-moving traffic towards Redbridge. ‘Did you like my mum?’

  Richards was like a Rottweiler with a bone. ‘I thought your mum was very nice.’

  ‘Very nice? Is that very nice as in the chocolate cake is very nice, or the hat you’
re wearing is very nice?’

  ‘You know what I mean?’

  ‘Yesterday, you said she was an angel.’

  ‘She still is.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you ask her to go out on a date?’

  ‘Because of this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Do you want to carry on working with me?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘If I went out with your mum I’d have to get another partner, or move to another country.’

  ‘Oh.’

  She said nothing for some time then, ‘All right.’

  ‘All right, what?’

  ‘You can find another partner, if that’s what it takes.’

  ‘I don’t want another partner. I like the one I’ve got.’

  ‘My mum deserves some happiness, and I think you’ll make her happy.’

  ‘I’m sure she does, and thanks for the vote of confidence, but we’re in the middle of a murder investigation, and I’m not swapping partners to go out with a woman I hardly know, regardless of how angelic she is. Can you imagine what the Chief would say after he’s gone out of his way to help you? Now, concentrate on getting us to Redbridge in one piece and stop asking questions about my private life.’

  ‘What private life?’

  ‘Stop talking, Richards.’

  ***

  As they were asking to see Martin Squires, the Finance Director, he walked into the reception. Cindy, the middle-aged receptionist, called out his name and moved round the counter to speak to him. Parish could see the conversation she was having with him was not going well, so he stepped forward with his warrant card.

  ‘Detective Inspector Parish and Constable Richards. Mr Squires, we’d like to ask you some questions.’ Cindy backed away.

  He looked agitated. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but now is not a convenient time.’

  ‘Would it be more convenient if I took all your accounts away and gave them to our forensic accountants?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I’m conducting a triple murder investigation, Mr Squires. I expect a degree of co-operation.’

  Squires relented. ‘Please follow me, Inspector.’

  ‘They followed Martin Squires into the lift. On the sixth floor they walked along a corridor and into his office. Finance Directors were obviously closer to God than Personnel or Education Directors.

  His secretary, a middle-aged woman with hairs on her chin like an oasis in a parched desert of makeup, stood up as Squires strode through her office. She was slightly confused that he had people with him. ‘Your nine o’clock is here, Sir.’

  ‘Cancel it, Deirdre. Something has cropped up.’

  ‘But…’

  He stopped at the door to his office and stared at her. ‘Did I not make myself abundantly clear?’

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ Deirdre said, her bottom lip trembling. She sat down and picked up the phone.

  Parish decided that he didn’t like Martin Squires, and just knew this was the man who had removed Brian Ridpath’s file from the archives. What he didn’t know was why.

  Squires put his briefcase down next to the desk and threw his coat and scarf onto an easy chair. He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on a hanger at the back of the door. ‘What is it you want, Inspector?’

  They clearly weren’t going to be offered coffee. ‘A man called Brian Ridpath was being paid £2,000 at the beginning of each month,’ he said to Squires. ‘I want to know why.’

  ‘I’m afraid employee financial information is confidential.’

  Parish noticed that Squires didn’t ask who Ridpath was. ‘I can easily get a search warrant, Mr Squires. And, as I’ve said, I’ll remove all of your financial records, and you won’t be able to access them for a long period of time while we examine them in detail. It would be in your best interests to co-operate with us.’

  He was surprised when Squires said, ‘I’m sorry, Inspector. You will need a warrant.’

  Parish’s jaw set hard. ‘When I do come back with a warrant, Mr Squires, I’m going to take a very close look at you as well. The only reason that you would require me to get a search warrant is if you had something to hide. I promise you, I’ll find out what that is.’

  Squires looked at him, but said nothing.

  ‘Let’s go and get a warrant, Richards.’ To Squires, he said, ‘We’ll be back before lunch, Mr Squires.’

  In the lift, Richards said, ‘He wants time to destroy the evidence doesn’t he?’

  ‘That’s my guess, but we’re powerless to stop him.’

  ‘We could arrest him.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Perverting the course of justice?’

  ‘I’m going to speak to your mother about you watching the Crime Channel.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When what?’

  ‘When will you speak to her?’

  The lift doors opened, but Parish didn’t move.

  ‘We’re here, Sir.’

  ‘I’ve had an idea.’ He strode over to the reception desk.

  ‘Hello, Inspector,’ Cindy said. ‘You didn’t arrest Mr Squires then?’

  ‘Tell me, Cindy, who is in charge of the council?’

  ‘You mean the Mayoress, Sir?’

  ‘Is she here now?’

  ‘No, she doesn’t have an office here, Sir.’

  ‘Well, who’s in charge here?’

  ‘Ah, I think you mean the Town Clerk, Inspector. He’s in charge of the day-to-day running of the council.’

  ‘Is he in? It’s urgent I speak to him.’

  Cindy picked up the phone. ‘I’ll find out for you.’

  After a short conversation she put the phone down and said, ‘Mr Traynor is in. If you go up to the seventh floor, he’ll see you now.’

  ‘Excellent. Thank you for your help, Cindy.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Inspector.’

  They went back up in the lift to the seventh floor, which housed a number of meeting rooms, the Town Clerk’s large office and his secretary’s office.

  A man in his early forties with steel grey hair came out of the Town Clerk’s office to meet them. He dwarfed Parish by at least four inches. Shaking hands with both Parish and Richards, he introduced himself as Paul Traynor. He ushered them into his office, and asked his homely secretary for a tray of refreshments.

  They were sitting in easy chairs around a glass-topped coffee table. Mr Traynor smiled, and then said, ‘How can I assist the police with their enquiries, Inspector Parish?’

  Parish got that all the time. He told the Town Clerk what had transpired in the Finance Director’s office. ‘What we’re concerned about,’ he said, ‘is that evidence may be destroyed.’

  Traynor looked thoughtful. ‘I can’t imagine Martin Squires doing anything like that.’ He stood up and went to his desk. ‘Clare,’ he said into the intercom system, ‘please ask Martin Squires to come up and see me.’

  He came back to his easy chair. ‘We’ll get this mess sorted out. Who exactly was this Brian Ridpath?’

  ‘As far as we know, he was a school caretaker.’

  ‘A school caretaker being paid £2,000 a month; there must be some logical explanation.’

  The office door opened and Mr Traynor’s secretary, Clare, came in with the tray of refreshments.

  Traynor stood up, took the heavy tray off her and placed it on the table.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sir,’ Clare said, ‘but no one seems to know where Mr Squires is. His secretary said he left his office shortly after the police went.’

  Getting up, Mr Traynor said, ‘Let’s walk down to his office, Inspector,’ and led the way.

  They took the stairs and were soon standing in Martin Squires’ office. His coat and briefcase were on the chair where he’d dropped them, so it was unlikely he’d left the building.

  ‘Has he got his mobile phone on him?’ Richards suggested.

  ‘Good thi
nking, Constable.’ Mr Traynor pulled out his own mobile and found Mr Squires in his contact list. He called the number and held it up to his ear, but didn’t speak. ‘Mrs Wilson,’ he said to Mr Squires’ secretary, ‘call security and ask them to see if they can locate him.’

  Parish looked at his watch, conscious that he was expected to be in the Chief’s office at ten thirty and also had a press briefing at eleven o’clock. It was quarter to ten. He’d give it another fifteen minutes and then he would have to leave.

  ‘We may as well wait in my office,’ Mr Traynor said. ‘At least there’s a cup of tea and some biscuits to keep us company.’

  At five to ten Clare knocked and came in. She whispered something in Mr Traynor’s ear. He thanked her and she left.

  ‘Security has found Mr Squires in the lower basement. He appears to have hung himself. I’ve told someone from security to stay with the body, and not to touch anything. First Diane and now Martin. What the hell is going on here, Inspector?’

  ‘I wish I knew, Mr Traynor.’ Parish called Doc Michelin and asked him to send someone for the body of Martin Squires. He then phoned the Chief, told him what had happened and asked him if he’d take the press briefing, and he would catch up with him later. The Chief agreed and Parish read off the short statement he’d devised. He then phoned forensics and asked them to send a team of forensic accountants. He wanted answers, and he wanted them today. There had been too many deaths with this case already. ‘I apologise if I sound insensitive, Mr Traynor, but in the absence of Mr Squires, is there someone else who could provide us with financial information?’

  Mr Traynor went out and spoke to his secretary, then returned. ‘I’ve told Clare to ask Susan Tollhurst, the Finance Manager, to come up. She’ll give you all the information you require.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Traynor. You should also know that a team of forensic accountants are on their way. Unfortunately, they’ll close the Finance Department until we’ve got to the bottom of what’s been happening. If you’re lucky, it might only be for a couple of days, but I have the feeling this is a large can of worms.’